Striking Photos Challenge The Way We See Blackness.......The one-drop rule, this rule had become law in most Southern states "to protect and preserve White racial purity," ....Who is Black? What is Blackness?

Who is Black? What is Blackness?

Sembene McFarland,
 "Black/African-American"

In a country where the face of the future is becoming ever more ethnically ambiguous, Blackness must be recognized as something other than just skin color and specific physical attributes. (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race, a book published last year by Dr. Yaba Blay, explores the complexities of racial classifications, and the different ways that people live and experience Blackness.

Blay's book, recently highlighted in a PolicyMic article by Amirah Mercer, features Noelle Théard's photographs of individuals who fit the so-called one-drop rule, but who self-identify in various ways.

Biany Pérez, Afro-Dominican

In antebellum America, the one-drop rule was used to define a person with any Black ancestry, no matter how remote, as Black. By 1910, this rule had become law in most Southern states "to protect and preserve White racial purity," Blay writes in her book. "One hundred years later, however, the social and political landscape has changed. Or has it? more